How can I get the list of files in a directory using C or C++?

How can I determine the list of files in a directory from inside my C or C++ code?

I'm not allowed to execute the ls command and parse the results from within my program.

Solution 1:

UPDATE 2017:

In C++17 there is now an official way to list files of your file system: std::filesystem. There is an excellent answer from Shreevardhan below with this source code (This code may throw):

#include <string>
#include <iostream>
#include <filesystem>
namespace fs = std::filesystem;

int main()
{
    std::string path = "/path/to/directory";
    for (const auto & entry : fs::directory_iterator(path))
        std::cout << entry.path() << std::endl;
}

Old Answer:

In small and simple tasks I do not use boost, I use dirent.h. It is available as a standard header in UNIX, and also available for Windows via a compatibility layer created by Toni Ronkko.

DIR *dir;
struct dirent *ent;
if ((dir = opendir ("c:\\src\\")) != NULL) {
  /* print all the files and directories within directory */
  while ((ent = readdir (dir)) != NULL) {
    printf ("%s\n", ent->d_name);
  }
  closedir (dir);
} else {
  /* could not open directory */
  perror ("");
  return EXIT_FAILURE;
}

It is just a small header file and does most of the simple stuff you need without using a big template-based approach like boost(no offence, I like boost!).

Solution 2:

C++17 now has a std::filesystem::directory_iterator, which can be used as

#include <string>
#include <iostream>
#include <filesystem>
namespace fs = std::filesystem;

int main() {
    std::string path = "/path/to/directory";
    for (const auto & entry : fs::directory_iterator(path))
        std::cout << entry.path() << std::endl;
}

Also, std::filesystem::recursive_directory_iterator can iterate the subdirectories as well.

Solution 3:

Unfortunately the C++ standard does not define a standard way of working with files and folders in this way.

Since there is no cross platform way, the best cross platform way is to use a library such as the boost filesystem module.

Cross platform boost method:

The following function, given a directory path and a file name, recursively searches the directory and its sub-directories for the file name, returning a bool, and if successful, the path to the file that was found.

bool find_file(const path & dir_path,         // in this directory,
               const std::string & file_name, // search for this name,
               path & path_found)             // placing path here if found
{
    if (!exists(dir_path)) 
        return false;

    directory_iterator end_itr; // default construction yields past-the-end

    for (directory_iterator itr(dir_path); itr != end_itr; ++itr)
    {
        if (is_directory(itr->status()))
        {
            if (find_file(itr->path(), file_name, path_found)) 
                return true;
        }
        else if (itr->leaf() == file_name) // see below
        {
            path_found = itr->path();
            return true;
        }
    }
    return false;
}

Source from the boost page mentioned above.

For Unix/Linux based systems:

You can use opendir / readdir / closedir.

Sample code which searches a directory for entry ``name'' is:

len = strlen(name);
dirp = opendir(".");
while ((dp = readdir(dirp)) != NULL)
        if (dp->d_namlen == len && !strcmp(dp->d_name, name)) {
                (void)closedir(dirp);
                return FOUND;
        }
(void)closedir(dirp);
return NOT_FOUND;

Source code from the above man pages.

For a windows based systems:

You can use the Win32 API FindFirstFile / FindNextFile / FindClose functions.

The following C++ example shows you a minimal use of FindFirstFile.

#include <windows.h>
#include <tchar.h>
#include <stdio.h>

void _tmain(int argc, TCHAR *argv[])
{
   WIN32_FIND_DATA FindFileData;
   HANDLE hFind;

   if( argc != 2 )
   {
      _tprintf(TEXT("Usage: %s [target_file]\n"), argv[0]);
      return;
   }

   _tprintf (TEXT("Target file is %s\n"), argv[1]);
   hFind = FindFirstFile(argv[1], &FindFileData);
   if (hFind == INVALID_HANDLE_VALUE) 
   {
      printf ("FindFirstFile failed (%d)\n", GetLastError());
      return;
   } 
   else 
   {
      _tprintf (TEXT("The first file found is %s\n"), 
                FindFileData.cFileName);
      FindClose(hFind);
   }
}

Source code from the above msdn pages.